Oh, I suppose you grow swiss chard for the leaves, don’t you? Maybe you roast them, maybe you braise them, maybe you even saute them. But not us, oh no. We grow them exclusively for the stalks, that’s where the good stuff is. So while you enjoy your dinner of supple chard leaves, we’ll be chewing and chewing and chewing on our nice fiberous chard stems…because we like it that way.

Several years ago when I had chickens I started out with this idea that the chickens would control bugs in the garden. The reality was quite a surprise when they uprooted my plants. From then on they were only let out when I was working in the garden and could supervise them. Their pen was almost as big as my house, so I don’t think they were missing much by being kept in.